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Cancer : A Serious Problem Around The World With No Real Cure Essay

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Cancer is a serious problem around the world with no real cure. So much money and time are being put into studies and trials to try to make progress towards a cure. As of right now lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States.1 Most patients who are diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer have a survival rate of less than 5%.1 Chemotherapy is the first intervention taken to fight lung cancer. Even though eighty percent of patients are responsive to this first line of chemotherapy treatment, most still relapse, for which there is no approved therapies beyond the second line.1 However, it is now being shown that the immune system is able to create an antitumor response. Recently studies have shown that immunotherapy could become a viable therapeutic approach in fighting lung cancer. Immunotherapy itself is using the body’s own immune system to help fight cancer cells. These cells are constantly rapidly-dividing and frequently mutate to trick the immune system. Immunotherapy drugs are ment to help the immune system locate and destroy the cancerous cells.2 Cancer cells are not normally recognized as foreign because they are normal self-cells that have mutated, which causes them to no longer behave like normal cells.2 The immune system cannot recognize this occurring which allows the cells to grow and divide. Cancerous cells stay hidden by sending signals to the PD-1 CTLA-4 receptors on immune cells.2 Those signals are what trick the body into

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